


A Study in Emotions

by Bronte



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drabble Collection, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bronte/pseuds/Bronte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of seven glimpses into the life and times of Commander Spock and James T. Kirk, traversing the galaxy one adventure at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study in Emotions

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta-ed and entirely spontaneous ; I haven't written Star Trek fic in years and I nearly forgot how marvelous it is to write them again.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr : custardandfshfingers.tumblr.com

_i.      courage_

Jim banked, levering the controls so tightly that Spock nearly expected it to break off into Jim’s hand. The human’s knuckles were white in his frantic iron grasp, his blank face devoid of all emotion save the panic in his eyes. He buttoned down his trepidation and turned to Spock instead, lips parted as if he were preparing to bark out an order.

“Engines?”

“Forty percent and diminishing captain.”

“Fuck!” Jim slammed his palms against the surface of the cockpit and hissed inherently, throwing the failing shuttlecraft into a daredevil roll. Spock gripped the smooth metallic station before him instinctively, knowing full well that artificial gravity would be the next to go.

Then environmental controls...

Then...

Spock spared a moment to glance behind him, catching a glimpse of Ensign Al Ghamdi and Doctor Koi strapped into their seats, both unconscious and failing rapidly. If they didn’t land soon, if they didn’t die in the process –

They broke the atmosphere with a painful thud and the structure of the damaged shuttlecraft groaned in protest, its plasteel plates covering them beginning to cave.

“I take it we don’t have shields?”

“If we did not have shields, we would not be currently breathing,” Spock replied dryly, recalibrating their shielding components with the concentration only a dying man could offer. The attack on their vessel left the shuttlecraft’s circuitry as something to be desired.

“Now now Spock, let’s be civil,” Jim replied through gritted teeth, tightening his grip on the controls, “Couldn’t you spare me some compassion before we plummet to our deaths?”

“I assume you have no intention of letting us ‘plummet to our deaths’ captain.”

Jim, breaking the cloud barrier, realized just how close to the ground they really were. He started pulling up hard on the controls in some vain attempt to pull them out of the mind numbing nosedive he had been fighting to flatten, “Of course not. I’ve got three lives at stake.”

Spock watched as the young captain pulled his feet out from under him and braced them against the dashboard of the cockpit, pulling the steering contraption upwards with all of the life force he possessed. The steel determination was painfully clear in his eyes in the reflection upon the windshield’s tempered glass, “Come on, you bastard, come on!”

The damaged shuttlecraft levelled three feet off the ground, just barely hovering over the sharpened black limestone that covered most of the uncharted continent. Jim whooped in triumph and let go of the steering wheel, throwing his hands up in the air in victorious glee and thanking every god and deity known to man at the top of him lungs. He spun around in his chair and threw Spock a winning grin, his laughter drowning out the urgent warning that was passing through Spock’s lips at that very moment.

Three point three seconds later, the engines failed.

 

* * *

_ii.     shock_

“Jesus fucking Christ Jim.”

The look of part-horror, part-disbelief and a good deal of kick-in-the-teeth and what-the-fuck-is-this-monstrosity was evident on the poor doctor’s features, leading Spock to believe that perhaps achieving Kolinahr would be a satisfactory achievement.

After all, if it would save himself from looking like that, should his steady ever falter, he’d do just about anything.

He turned his vision over to Jim and his train of thought stopped momentarily, the blond’s current situation too disturbing to ignore.

“Seriously Jim, how on God’s green earth did you manage to turn yourself blue?”

 

* * *

_iii.      focus_

For a psi null species, Spock was ambivalently surprised at how much concentration and solidarity a small group of humans could channel when faced with a problem.

An immense problem.

The Vulcan turned towards Jim, staring vacantly as his lips blurred in and out of focus. He was tired; they were all tired. Chekov was nearly snoring in his seat and Lieutenant Ryga wasn’t faring any better. Even Lieutenant Scott was having a hard time just keeping his head up.

Jim was the only one near enough awake to even think straight, his nearly infinite amount of adrenaline pulsating through his veins. His eyes were uncanny and unnaturally wide in comparison to the drowsy officers all surrounding him.

After all, with everyone falling asleep left and right, it was up to him and him alone to save his crew.

Spock fought against the sleep impulse with an almost nauseating burst of energy, his olive toned skin blanching towards an insipid shade of grey. He sucked a ragged breath through his teeth and steeled himself against the oncoming assault of thetawaves bombarding the flagship’s frequencies, forcing everyone on the vessel to fall into a catatonic sleep that continued to remain impossible to cure.

“Has anyone managed to pinpoint the source?”

Sulu dragged his sagging eyes towards his captain and silenced a languid sigh threatening to escape, “Yeah. It was Chekov but...I finished it for him,” his sigh broke from his lips but he couldn’t bring himself to look sorry about it, too focused on the situation at hand to waste any bit of effort he could spare, “The Beta-Caron system. All of the inner planets are gas giants so the frequency must be coming from one of the life bearing moons.”

“What do we know about the system?” Uhura asked, gulping down her ninth cup of coffee that day.

“Not much,” Giotto replied, stifling a yawn, “Most of foreign security is down for the count so when Sulu filed it down to the headquarters I had to look after it.”

“And?”

Giotto nearly sandwiched his head between his hands to keep himself from yawning again, “Sorry. StarFleet sent us shit all about the system, slapping us with another goddamned ‘classified’ clause,” Jim rolled his eyes, all too familiar with the irritating, all capital ten letter word blinking all over his screen, “So I did a little digging myself and this is what I managed to come up with. Twenty moons, two of which are occupied by the same species split by war. They’re technologically advanced and genetically obsessed. Unfortunately, that’s all I could suck out of the classified databases without breaking through any more firewalls.”

“Nice work,” Jim nodded gratefully in the security officer’s direction, “At least now we have something to work with.”

“Well fuck me Jim, genetically obsessed don’t sound so good,” Doctor McCoy grumbled from the side screen, the doctor having been too busy with his patients and nurses falling like flies to attend the emergency meeting, “Nothin’ like a planet full of psychos to keep ya on yer toes.”

Spock pulled himself out of thought long enough to speak, “Perhaps the broadcast of sleep inducing frequencies is a device used to ensnare ships in order to widen their genetic pool. It is probable that the two groups of beings are attempting to breed a more superior species. A study in eugenics, perhaps.”

The conscious officers stewed over the Vulcan’s theory for a moment, weighing the probabilities in their quickly receding minds. McCoy was the first to drawl out his opinion, chugging back what seemed like a quart of coffee just before doing so, “For once, I gotta agree with the hobgoblin.”

“And there’s no way these waves are a natural frequency emitting from of one of the gas giants?”

“Negative sir,” Sulu replied as loudly as he could, jarring himself out of his imminent slumber, “It’s artificial and transmitting from one of the moons.”

“Fantastic,” Jim ran his fingers through his dishevelled hair, “Okay. Who’s with me for blowing them out of the sky?”

Giotto snorted and Sulu raised his hand as a smattering of jaded laughter filled the conference room, a grin forming on the weary helmsman’s lips; Spock didn’t see the humour.

Jim turned to the Vulcan and threw him a tired smile, his eyes sparkling with a joke Spock didn’t quite comprehend. Its significance passed unnoticed but the young commander took stock of it anyway, keeping the snapshot of this captain’s smile locked away inside the confines of his brain.

“Well, have another cup of coffee,” Jim said, snatching another steaming pot of brewed caffeine from the coffee machine, “We’re about to go where no man has gone before.”

He chuckled suddenly, realizing his mistake.

“Conscious, that is.”

 

* * *

          _iv.     disgust_

“Racist son of a bitch!”

Spock quickened his pace slightly, eager to catch up with his incensed captain, “I assure you captain that I am in no way offend—”

“Xenophobic assholes, that’s what the matter here. Who the fuck treats somebody that way just because they have pointy fucking ears—”

“Sir, their threats did not imply that I would be physically harmed—”

“Just ridiculed and disrespected! Like that’s any better—”

“Sir, I—”

“For Christ’s sake Spock, grow a backbone already. For once I’d just like to see you backhand one of those pigs across the face after saying something like that to you.”

“An irrational reaction, such as the one you just described, would have meant the end of the peace treaty.”

“An irrational reaction my ass,” Jim shook his head roughly, staring daggers into the carpeted hallways leading towards their quarters, “What is wrong with this goddamned planet?”

Spock let out the Vulcan equivalent of a sigh, “Jim, do not further trouble yourself with the xenophobic views of others. I assure you that the peace treaty is far more important than my ‘hurt feelings’, to use your venacular.”

Jim looked up at the Vulcan for the first time since he had stormed out of the transporter room in a fit of rage and offered a ghost of a smile to his friend, “Are you sure you don’t want me to beam back down there and kick their asses?”

Spock’s lips twitched upwards in what could have been a mischievous smirk as they paused at the brink of Jim’s quarters, “Had the visit been on different terms, you would not have been beaming down alone.”

 

* * *

          _v.     fear_

The bite was beginning to fester but Spock dared not speak another word to him. Jim was already acting like a wounded animal, cornered and beaten, and Spock was sure that stepping any closer to his captain would only provoke his feral instincts further.

His ashen skin looked colourless and sallow in the filtering moonlight, his captain’s face alight with a sliver of the celestial globe looming ominously up above. It reminded Spock of just how little time they had left in their pitiable shelter if they wanted to survive.

Finally, the Vulcan couldn’t take it anymore.

“Jim, your leg—”

“For Christ sakes Spock, I heard you the first time! Just throw me the fucking bandages and I’ll do it myself!”

Spock indulged him and rooted through their bag for a roll of bandages. He grasped the bundle of medical supplies from the bottom of the kit and slipped an antibiotic topical ointment into the bandages as well, hoping his injured captain would get the poorly concealed hint.

Ten minutes passed.

Spock awoke from his meditative reverie at the sound of a gasp. The Vulcan jerked his head around and sprang to his feet in a blur of darkened movement, speeding faster than what was humanly possible to the aid of his young captain now writhing on the floor. Spock grabbed Jim’s pack and shoved it beneath Jim’s trembling feet in a feeble attempt to stave off the inevitable but he knew it was too late; Jim’s body was going into shock and there was nothing he could do about it.

For once, the Vulcan didn’t try to mask his facial expressions.

After guiding his head in what he hoped to be the last convulsion of his seizure, it occurred to him that it had probably been the antibiotic that had stimulated the spastic attack. Spock swallowed uncomfortably, realizing the repercussions if his irresponsibility. He could have just killed his captain, killed his friend, killed Jim—

The stricken human moaned beneath the kneeling Vulcan and Spock quickly capsulated the moment; it might have been the last sound to have escaped his lips alive.

 

* * *

          _vi.     determination_

The bridge was completely silent and Spock was certain that he had never seen his captain look so unwavering, so resolute. His brow was creased in concentration, his muscles seized in what appeared to be alarm; his hands gripped the armrests of his command chair with the force of four hundred men and women, all staring death in the eyes.

And a Romulan war vessel stared back.

Spock wasn’t sure how many more were out there, hiding seamlessly in their elusive cloaks. His sensors showed nothing but empty space.

Then, Jim flinched.

The blonds’ eyes narrowed suddenly, his lips tense in a purse of sheer concentration. He leant forward in his seat and continued to gaze intently out into the vast expanse of seemingly empty space, knowing instinctively as to what his captain might have seen.

And then he saw it too.

Jim turned to Spock and grinned deviously, somehow aware that Spock had detected the same glitch in their enemy’s armour that he had, “Mr. Spock. Take over weapons.”

“Aye captain,” Spock replied, knowing exactly what was being asked of him. He had performed this tactic once before alongside Jim and Lieutenant Sulu once before in the Acadian System and the human fraction inside of him flared enigmatically. It did not matter what century they were from; just the sight of a Romulan vessels made his blood curdle.

“Mark one oh eight point three. Their shields are obviously armed but not employed. Their cloak wouldn’t be flickering otherwise. Mr. Spock?”

“Target is laid captain.”

“Sulu?”

“Ready when you are.”

“Then, on the count of three,” Jim peered over his shoulder, throwing Spock another one of his mischievous grins before turning back to the view screen, “One...”

Spock splayed his fingers across the familiar station board, his right index poised precariously over the trigger.

“Two...”

Jim clamped his fists against the seat of his chair and kept his eyes glued to the target, his mouth nearly salivating with the word dancing on his tongue.

“THREE!”

In less than a second, Spock had armed weapons and fired a photon torpedo at the starboard engine of the concealed warcraft before the exposed vessel could even react. The hidden ship suddenly flickered into the Enterprise’s view screen, its engine ignited and its cloaking abilities shot. The wounded ship began to fall downwards into the blackness of space and as it did so, six other cloaked ships revealed themselves to their Federation foe.

“Sulu, now!”

The young lieutenant thrust forward on the controls and effectively punched a hole through space time, losing their nemesis at warp. Sulu brought them out again and set off in an entirely new direction, lengthening the maze in which the Romulans would find themselves in if they chose to pursue. Jim laughed out loud and slapped his palms against the arm rests of his seat in absolute relief, a smile plastering itself across his face.

Making eye contact, Spock knew at least a portion of it was for him.

 

* * *

          _vii.     recklessness_

“Welcome to Las Vegas!”

Spock glanced over at his captain, sizing up the huge grin splattered on his face, “You do recall that we are here for business purposes only?”

Jim snorted and tightened his grip on the wheel, pressing the pedal further towards the floor, “We don’t have any seminars scheduled at night,” Spock clasped the safety bar on the upper side of the passenger seat as the vehicle hurtled at an illicit speed towards the haze of blinding lights on the horizon, “You didn’t seriously think I’d be spending the whole time working did you?”

“I would state regulation but—”

“I won’t listen, yeah I know. Sometimes rules are just too fucking stupid to be taken seriously.”

Spock took a moment to glance over towards the speedometer, swallowing the undesirable urge to vomit when the vehicle changed gears again and launched itself faster into the night. Without turning his head, Jim reached down and flicked the controls of the flaming scarlet rental vehicle, forcing the radio’s music to throb in tandem with the engines raging pistons that pounded to a fiendish beat Jim was having no problem keeping with his head. Spock tried but couldn’t follow, the squeal of metal against metal and the barest stench of burning rubber too distracting to force away.

Twenty minutes later they turned onto Paradise Road and swerved in and out of the thick traffic that lined the popular boulevard. Spock sucked a shallow breath in through his teeth and fought to keep his composure as they narrowly missed a pedestrian attempting to cross the street and the vehicle nearly careened into a post in the process. Spock nearly cried out but held his tongue, forcing himself to trust the most treacherous driver he had ever encountered to return them their lodgings in one piece.

And preferably alive.

The Vulcan was relieved to see the hotel on his itinerary loom into view just ahead of him and he let his shoulders relax just slightly, still keeping his eyes glued to the road ahead of him. Jim continued to weave through the throngs of vehicles, antique and otherwise, but he had also seen the hotel on the horizon and a grin split across his face.

“So, when was the last time you were in Vegas?” Jim asked above the hum of the engine.

Spock didn’t take his eyes off the road, “I was here to attend a linguistics conference as a speaker. Lieutenant Uhura was also in attendance.”

“Uhura huh? Were you two uh...you know, then?” Jim asked, narrowly missing a vintage 2112 Corvette.

“If by your ambiguity you mean was I courting her then yes, I was courting the lieutenant at the time.”

“Courting? Seriously?” Jim snorted, “Last time I checked, the _Excaliber_ was torn down in 2022.”

Spock fought the urge to roll his eyes, “It is the Standard term that most accurately translates to the Vulcan language.”

“Ah,” Jim smirked, “And what dictionary were you using? One from the 1500s?”

“Negative,” Spock replied dryly, “It is still a word commonly used in Standard.”

Jim threw him a sceptical glance but otherwise said nothing. Spock doubted that he believed him.

Nearly bottoming out, Jim tore into the driveway of the lavish Las Vegas hotel and parked just out front, throwing the nearest valet his keys, “Treat her good kid. She’s a rental.”

Recognizing the publicized hero of StarFleet and the saviour of the entire Sol system, the young valet caught the keys in his outstretched hands and immediately responded with a face splitting grin.

“Yes sir!” The teenaged employee scampered around the back of the vehicle and began hauling their baggage out from the trunk, resting all four bags gently onto the synthesized marble. Spock moved to help the boy but he insisted on doing it himself and politely declined. When he had finally brought the final bag to rest upon the driveway, the young boy tipped his crushed velvet hat and smiled, “Grabbing your bags is the least I could do for ya.”

“Thanks kid,” Jim replied with his usual charming smirk and sent another in Spock’s direction, “What do you say Spock? Up for a night on the town?”

Spock reached down to retrieve his luggage, “Negative. I endeavour to spend this evening completing assignments and meditating.”

Jim followed him into the lobby and raised an eyebrow, accompanying the mischievous look in his eyes with an impish grin, “Come on Spock, it’ll be fun!”

“Your definition of fun does not correspond with mine.”

Stopping at the end of the queue, Jim dropped his bags and faced his XO dead on, fixing him with a look that spoke of danger and promises, “I don’t believe in no win scenarios, and I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Resolute as he was, Spock was powerless to reply.

 

 


End file.
